This invention relates to systems for presenting Internet content to television viewers. More particularly, the invention provides a system which captures unstructured information obtained from the Internet and other sources, organizes it, and prepares it for transmission to viewers' set-top boxes for display on standard television receivers.
There is an increasing synergy between television broadcasting and the Internet. Many broadcasters in the television industry support their own web sites where they post content relating to and supplementing their programming. For example, web sites for news or weather channels provide visitors with additional information not available in the broadcast program, such as reports specific to a region or interest or additional breaking reports. The broadcasters notify viewers of their web site address and encourage the viewers to visit their web site to obtain more information or participate in an interactive activity such as a survey relating to a program. There are also numerous web sites devoted to specific programs, such as those supported by fan organizations or individuals. Each site may have different information and may focus on different aspects of the program.
Viewers currently have several ways to take advantage of this synergy. One straightforward way is for the viewer to access the Internet over a personal computer and visit to the broadcaster's web site, without using or affecting the television receiver. This requires the viewer to break the continuity of the program and the viewing experience. Alternatively, systems such as WEBTV offer viewers the ability, among other things, to jump out to the world wide web while watching television, browse the web, and then return to watching television. Some systems may even provide the ability to continue watching a television program in a picture-in-picture type of representation, while accessing the web. Use of these types of systems requires special set top boxes and/or television receivers as well as additional input devices such as wireless keyboards.
The existing systems have several disadvantages. In all these cases, viewers are required to have additional systems to access the Internet while watching television. Viewers having only standard television receivers, even those connected to satellite or cable systems, are excluded. Moreover, the experience of accessing the Internet over the television is very similar to the traditional experience, requiring at least basic computer skills for navigating and interacting with the content. Many televisions viewers may still not have these basic skills and continue to be intimidated by computers. Further, the content accessed over the Internet is viewed in substantially the same form over the television as it is over the Internet. Since Internet content is often of lesser quality than television programming with respect to both video and audio, this creates a sharp, noticeable contrast between the two types of experiences.
Yet another disadvantage with existing systems is that the broadcaster does not have control over how the information is presented to a viewer. Although simply offering access to web pages may provide some limited benefit to broadcasters, broadcasters may prefer to retain greater control over the quality and content in the web pages, particularly those offered by third parties such as fan organizations. A broadcaster may also desire to integrate several web sites into a single page, and to control the sequence in which such content is viewed. Existing methods of such integration, such as using HTML frames, do not provide sufficient control over the material for a broadcaster nor do they allow broadcasters to transform such information or convert such information into a form that a broadcaster can use in traditional program scheduling.
There is thus a need for systems and techniques for capturing content from web sites and processing the content for presentation to all television viewers.